SocialSlider: Changing the Transparency of Avatars
Anna E. M. Wolf, Jens Reinhardt, Marco Kurzweg, Katrin Wolf · 2022
Due to the growing number of users, social virtual reality can get crowded. As we sometimes prefer to be only surrounded by friends or more enjoy empty galleries to have a better view, we designed SocialSlider: an interaction technique that allows us to manipulate other avatars’ transparency. We implemented SocialSlider with two transparency control modes and four avatar selection techniques: (1) select a single avatar, (2) select all, (3) select a co-located group, or (4) select a semantic group, such as unknown users. Through a user study, we found that (A) The concept of SocialSlider is appreciated and promising to overcome issues of crowded VR, such as occlusion. (B) The avatar’s level of transparency can affect their perceived co-presence. Thus, we show that fading avatars’ visibility is a beneficial technique in multi-user VR with benefits beyond avoiding occlusion, such as controlling the felt privacy or the experience of being social.